Rand study plays down effects of dam removal

Matthew Daly, The Associated Press

Published 10:00 pm, Wednesday, September 4, 2002

WASHINGTON -- Breaching four Snake River dams in Eastern Washington to help salmon would neither impede economic growth in the Northwest nor hurt the region's power supply, according to a new report by the Rand Corp.

The report, released yesterday, said the dams provide just 5 percent of the power in the Pacific Northwest and could be removed with little effect on the overall economy. Removal of the dams could help the region diversify its power supply, the report said, while providing as many as 15,000 new jobs over 20 years, primarily in recreation.

Environmentalists hailed the report, saying it provided clear-cut evidence that dam removal is in the region's best interest. Conservationists have long pushed to breach -- or remove the earthen parts of the dams -- to hasten the recovery of threatened salmon and steelhead.

But Rep. George Nethercutt, R-Wash., whose district includes the four lower Snake River dams, said the report did nothing to convince him that breaching is a good idea. The dams at issue are the Ice Harbor, Lower Monumental, Little Goose and Lower Granite dams in southeastern Washington. "I think it's a nonsense option for us in Eastern Washington and really in the Pacific Northwest," Nethercutt said.

The costs of breaching are high, he said, while the benefits, if any, are questionable. Partial removal of the dams is estimated to cost at least $1 billion and disrupt activity in the river for years, Nethercutt and other opponents said.

Former Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt, who remained neutral on dam breaching while in office, said yesterday that the Rand report convinced him that the time has come to remove the dams.

Babbitt, who served as interior secretary under President Bill Clinton, said that when he took office nearly a decade ago, the idea of removing a working dam "somehow seemed to be an unnatural act."

Now, experience has taught him that "the dams really aren't the pyramids of Egypt," he said. "Once they've served their purpose, they ought to come down."

Rep. Jim McDermott, D-Wash., has sponsored a bill to allow removal of the dams, but the measure faces long odds. No other Northwest House member has signed on as a co-sponsor, and no action has been taken on the bill since December.

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, which operates the dams, has rejected breaching in favor of a strategy that relies on structural improvements to help juvenile salmon pass by the dams on their way to the Pacific Ocean.

A spokesman for the corps' Walla Walla district office declined to comment on the Rand report.

The National Marine Fisheries Service, which is charged with restoring salmon and steelhead runs now protected under the Endangered Species Act, rejected dam breaching in December 2000 after studying the matter for five years.

Its alternative plan, labeled "aggressive non-breach," calls for leaving the dams in place while taking significant steps to restore streams where salmon spawn, reform hatcheries to reduce harm to wild fish and increase fishing restrictions. The agency says breaching should again be considered if specific goals are not met by 2003, 2005 and 2008.

Federal officials said last year's drought set the plan back, but they urged patience. They say efforts to revitalize the runs are still on track -- a view that conservationists reject.

"If we're on track, we're heading for a train wreck, and it's called extinction," said Nicole Cordan of Save Our Wild Salmon.